I was recently in Detroit and, during my too brief sojourn, had the opportunity to visit the studio of Church Militant, the HQ of Michael Voris and his merry band.

I have to say that I was deeply concerned at what I saw there. I was troubled.

I can’t figure out how all the people involved with Church Militant are so… what’s the word…. happy, zealous and faithful when my investigative visit to the studio uncovered such shocking problems.

Let’s start with the clocks. Notice that they show the times different cities… but someone forgot to wind them. Do they really know what time it is in the studios there? Perhaps they think it is still the 50’s.

Let’s move up to the next shocker.

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Do not be distracted by that really cool and super Catholic Spanish flag on the wall. Look at the big bronze statue of St. Michael the Archangel.

See the problem? See it?

The point is covered up!

They gave me some cock-and-bull story about being concerned about someone running into the point “accidently”, …. as if any “real Catholic” would do that. HA!

I am lead to ask: Do they really believe in angels?

NEXT….

See those bricks in the background?

They are not really bricks! They’re FAKE! For a brick by brick fellow, such as I am, I found this to be truly scandalous.

NEXT… Here is a little bit of misdirection. I was just about to wave, much in the same way in which I waved when I stood in front of the HQ of the National Schismatic Reporter in Kansas City (HERE). I’m smiling on the outside, but crying on the inside.

And then there is the chapel.

I could do nothing but tisk during my visit there. Look where that missal is sitting. Just LOOK! Clearly they hate Summorum Pontificum. That missal is positioned as if for the Novus Ordo. What is the world coming too?

And then my investigative reporting took me into the heart of darkness itself: Michael Voris’ office.

What did I find?

I found a big Bible, Douay Rheims version. But that was just misdirection for the unwary. Right next to the Bible was the Jerome Biblical Commentary, a massive tome of modernistic historical-critical research!

Are they secret modernists?

But there’s more!

On the bookshelf, near his desk, is … and I can hardly bring myself to write this…

Richard McBrien’s Catholicism. “catholicism” more like!

To their credit, they have a really spiffy popcorn machine in the common area.

But then there is the huge rear-projection screen.

I asked a couple times if Michael forces the employees to sit and watch old episodes of The Vortex one after another…. they did not deny it!

Suspicious.

The common area is painted red… red… get it?

What leaves you really wondering after a visit like this is how to bring them back to the fold?

In the meantime, here is a cartoon that appeared in the print edition of the UK’s Catholic Herald.

Here is the backstory, also in paper:

CEO of Toni & Guy is given papal knighthood

the co-founder and CEO of a hairdressing chain and his wife have been given a top papal award in recognition of their charitable work.
Toni Mascolo, who came to Britain from Pompeii as a child in the 1950s, founded the chain Toni & Guy with his brother Guy in Clapham, south London, in 1963. Other family members joined the company, and it grew from just one salon to a chain of 280 in Britain, plus many more abroad.
In 2006 Toni Mascolo was appointed a Cavaliere Ufficial, or Knight of the Italian State. He was awarded an honorary OBE in 2008 for services to industry. The following year he met Pope Benedict XVI.
Toni (originally Giuseppe) Mascolo and his wife, Pauline, were appointed Knight and Dame Commanders of the Pontifical Order of St Gregory the Great. The honour, bestowed personally by Pope Benedict before his resignation, was presented last month by Archbishop Peter Smith at Southwark Cathedral.
Mr Mascolo said: “My wife and I are devoted Catholics and believe in what
Catholicism stands for very deeply. I met the Pope when he was in London after he had seen David Cameron back in 2010. He came to see us in another room and it was
probably the most wonderful, exciting and unforgettable moment of my life and one that I will always remember. So of course when I received the award of Knight Commander of St Gregory it was truly, truly an amazing moment and I was so proud to have received such an honour, more than any other award I have ever received in my life. It was a magic moment.”

The cartoonist is Christian Adams – Cartoonist of the Year in Britain.

But Father! But Father! Were you unable to uncover the huge, hoarded stockpiles of pencils (taken from the poor, I’d venture to guess) that Mr. Voris uses to spin at the beginning of his Vortex videos?

I think you are onto something about the clocks. I believe the Archdiocese of New York had a ’50s clock sale recently. Mmmmmm. Did you by any chance see the one-song juke box from teenage Voris rec room? I think it was his mother’s idea. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTYn3eXHxT8

I was pondering at the “honorary OBE” thinking he was a UK citizen and subject of HM. Apparently, though being in the UK from the 1950s, he’s still a citizen of Italy; otherwise, the OBE would be substantative.

Regardless, receiving the OBE is a great honor and as a “Member” within the OBE rank structure, he can use the MBE postnominals.

I am a big fan of Mr. Voris. As a layman, he uses free license to call a spade a spade, and call out people who simply are not doing their job. Of all the criticism that can legitimately be levelled at Bishops, the most true is that they are not held to account.

The mission of the Church is to save souls. A Pastor is responsible for all the souls in his Parish (all souls, I believe – not just Catholics) and a Bishop is responsible for all souls in his Diocese (same – all). The means pastoral care of Catholics and conversion of all non-Catholics and charity to everyone. Every Bishop should have a Performance Plan with key metrics and targets that must be measured and audited annually, including:

1. # of conversions
2. # of vocations to priesthood and religious orders
3. Leadership and profile on key faith and moral battlefronts for the Church
4. # exorcisms (ok, I threw that last one in there…but why not? a “0” should be a red flag)

Mr. Voris was instrumental in my finding the TLM. About 4 years ago someone sent me a link to Real Catholic TV. I heard for the first time, about the “Pro Multis” debate. Weather it was “for many” or “for all”. Like any good Catholic I went and asked my parish Priest. His answer was, shall we say, a little heated and well, lets just leave it there. I tried to put it out of my mind but that question gave birth to so many others. Chief among them “hey, how come I’ve never heard of this, I’m a cradle Catholic for corn sake?!?” And “what else don’t I know?” Long story short, I kept listening to Mr. Voris and I READ, for the first time, the Church Fathers and Encyclicals. And I fell in LOVE with the wisdom and beauty of the Church that, though I had been born into, I never really knew. The One True Faith set me on a journey that, though difficult, is my life’s blood. I got cancer that year. GOD has impeccable timing. The bedrock of knowledge, which is the deposit of faith, helped me make sense of it all and absolutely kept me going. I gladly drive to another state for the TLM where the silence and the text of the immemorial Mass focus my feeble, irradiated brain. And the prayers written by Saints give form to the longing in my soul. My son is an Altar boy, LOVES to serve and is considering a vocation. DEO Gratias!!!

@ Indulgentiam; He’s had the same effect on me and my family. We have never been more alive in God and closer as a family. My journey from the cafeteria catholic realm started with a priest who challanged us to investigatge why catholics believe as we do. My initial search lead me to realcatholictv.com (now ChurchMilitant.tv) watching clips of “The One True Faith” on youtube and my life has since changed. I would not know of Father Z if it were not for his website. Thank you Holy Spirit for leading me to him and subsequently great blogs like Fr. Z’s.
Andy
p.s. As an 18 yr veteran ad counting, Michael could use a haircut!

Just slightly OT, hrrm, ever since I first saw Mr Voris hair-do, I’ve been wondering where I have seen it before. Five minutes ago I suddenly recognised it – round 2000 a friend of mine looked after a heavy, spoiled and mean *but* elegant Brown Burmese cat for a whole year. The nasty creature not only wanted to sleep on her pillow, no, he demanded to lie on her head, like a giant fur hat aswell. His tail was wrapped across her forhead just like Mr. V’s forelock…

If you ask *me* (which you probably won’t), me thinks Mr Voris should keep his signature hair and and continue to poke perfid people per his pointy pen!

Perhaps the anti-2nd Amendment folks will soon demand that Michael (“my saint,” by the way) must carry a shorter sword. After all, why does Michael really need a long sword to defend us from the devil? Won’t a shorter sword work just as well to hunt demons?

Thanks for all your wonderful work, Father Z, and God bless Church Militant.tv

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- St. John Paul II

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“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

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